Further thoughts on recruiting marketing

Most people realize that promoting your organization at the local level is essential if your company does business primarily in the local market. But if your market is elsewhere, how much effort do you need to put into marketing at the local level? At least some, since your employee pool will be local.

In the heyday of the dot.com era, competition for employees was fierce. Salaries skyrocketed, signing bonuses were commonplace and companies offered all kinds of extras to entice potential employees: pool and ping pong tables, gym memberships, flex hours, beer on Friday afternoons, you name it. The key message seemed to be: you will be well compensated and we are a fun place to work.

Today, most companies do not operate in such a hyper-competitive market. Companies still need to create awareness with potential employees and they need to create a favourable impression with those individuals. How you create that awareness and what your message is will vary with the type of organization and your location.

Regardless of your tactics and messaging, whatever you do to build awareness locally must complement the corporate branding used in customer-focused communications. This is one reason why HR and Marketing must work together. Not only is it important that recruiting messages are consistent with corporate messaging, but it may be possible to leverage marketing opportunities that address both department’s objectives. Consistency creates credibility.

Tactics:
When choosing marketing tactics, consider the following:

• Signage — signage on the building where your office is says “we are here” and “we’re big enough to put a sign on the building”. Building signage can be a gentle reminder of your name and will help reinforce your corporate identity.


• Transits ads — transit shelter ads and billboards can supplement building signage to highlight your physical location while bus ads can target particular geographic-based audiences, such as students on routes heading to a university.


• Career ads — display ads in the career section should include a blurb about the company and what it does in addition to a clear description of the open position.


• Event sponsorships — consider sponsoring both business and charitable events. Either can involve speaking opportunities, company descriptions, employee involvement, logo placement, co-op advertising, product placements, etc. Keep in mind that donations are different from sponsorship, both from what recognition you can ask for as well as how it is dealt from a business and tax perspective.


• PR — don’t forget to include local media when getting the word out about corporate or product news. Consider what messages you want to reinforce that are specifically interesting to the talent pool when working with the local press.


• Business awards — leverage any recognition your organization receives from local business associations or industry associations to highlight the company’s achievements and position it as a successful organization, whether it is as an innovator, thought leader or good corporate citizen.

Messages:
Each tactic comes with an opportunity to create targeted messaging. The message should be specific for your target audience of potential employees, in addition to being appropriate for both the marketing vehicle as well as its general audience.

When creating your message, consider what is important to your audience: what language do they speak; what words resonate with them. Is “Accelerate your career” or “Secure your future” more appropriate? Do you want to focus on the quality of your product, your corporate philosophy or mission, who your customers are, or what a great place it is to work? A research organization may want to talk about cutting-edge facilities, while a non-profit may want to reinforce what a great team they have.

Even without the opportunity to include specific content, you can communicate a message by your actions. For example, you can project an image of being community minded through charitable programs. As title sponsor for an event, your company will be mentioned every time the event is mentioned. Product placement can also be an effective way to reach both customers as well as potential employees.

Built on your corporate marketing strategy, a successful recruiting marketing campaign will include the following key elements:

• Have a goal — what’s the end result you are looking for
• Create a strategy — what’s the approach and focus
• Build a plan — with HR and marketing working together on both tactics and messaging
• Execute over time — don’t try to do everything at once
• Review frequently — what’s working and what’s not; what changes can you make

Just remember that whatever activities you use to recruit employees will reflect on your overall brand.